Online agents, High Street agents, or DIY?

Sellers on the Isle of Man are lucky people. I mean it. Why? Because they have more choice today than they’ve ever had. More choice as to HOW you can sell your home, WHO you can sell your home with and at WHAT sort of fee you end up paying. To me, that’s being in the box seat.

Good. So it’s advantage seller. If that’s you, what next?

You could try listing your home with an ‘online agent’. Are there any of those on the Isle of Man? The answer is no. Some purport to be online but let’s be honest, on the Isle of Man, we are all ‘online’. There isn’t a truly online estate agency on the Isle of Man like there are in the UK, for example Sarah Beeney’s ‘Tepilo’, or the now infamous ‘Purple Bricks’. These agents charge very low fees for a ‘package’ of estate agency services. Their business model works mostly on volume sales but also anti-establishment sentiment seemingly convincing you, through clever advertising, to ditch the tried and trusted model. On the Island, there isn’t the number of sales being agreed to make this model work at the low fees charged.

So we’ve established there isn’t a truly online option on the Island. Next is the traditional high street agent – we’re one of these. Some people perceive that high street estate agents try to ‘make the market’ and drive fees higher without really caring too much about the customer. Perhaps some do, although I’ve not seen this in nearly 20 years of being in the industry. In my experience, most high street agencies provide a comprehensive service to sellers to ensure they achieve the optimum selling price for their clients. It takes nouse, experience, skill and a little luck to do this. Agents draw upon all these skills to achieve the best for their clients. And charging a sensible reasonable fee for doing so is perfectly acceptable in my book. Yours too I’d expect. However, some charge less, a lot less. And in my humble opinion, if you buy cheap you often pay twice. Cheaper isn’t always better.

Lastly we’ve got the DIY option. List your home yourself. Take the photos, draw up the details, sketch out the floorplan and ask a local sign company to make you a ‘For Sale’ board. That bit is quite easy. The hard part is then doing the job of the estate agent as well as your own. As well as looking after your family when you’re not at work. Perhaps you’ve got commitments with the children, you’re ferrying them to various clubs or sports every Saturday. I say this because you’ll have to do the viewings yourselves too. At times to suit the buyer (which invariably won’t suit you!). It is a hard job, a difficult job, a job that takes time and a job that you really ought to trust to the experts in the field. But we appreciate you have a choice. Which is why we strive to advise you, help you and guide you through what can be a bit of a minefield these days, even though technology is meant to make things a great deal easier for us all.

My advice, for what it’s worth, is use a reputable, trusted and professional high street estate agent to help you. And you’ll probably find most of them don’t charge extortionate fees for doing so.

If you’d like to find out more about how Black Grace Cowley can help you move, please give us a call on 645555 or email us: hello@blackgracecowley.com – we’d love to hear from you.